Brokenness is what we long for?

It's the thought of brokenness that confuses me as a christ follower. If we are truly broken, then why do we feel that others need to be saved before we do (remember to invite your coworkers and neighbors to friend day...but not the homeless or the drugdealers - that's too far out there)? Jesus tells us that the prostitutes and tax collectors will make it into the kingdom before we will. It's because they are broken. They realize that they are not worthy to even hang out with Jesus, but he still wants them. Jesus is the king of the "losers"! These are the people he longs to be with.

I wonder if where we went wrong is when we began mistaking the gospels for our morality. It's like we've taken the thought that we are made in the image of God to mean that we are to be God himself - pure, perfect, and above everybody else. Our quest for holiness has fogged our vision so that we don't see others and in the end, our morality has trumped out faith. But our moraily is far deeper than faith; doesn't God want faith before virtue?

Kierkegaard, my current favorite theologian/philosopher, showed this when he spoke about Abraham. He talked about how Abraham was about to act on God's call to murder his son, and he does this out of faith - his virtue of not killing another is nowhere to be found, but his faith is clearly there. How freaky would it be if God had asked you to kill your son to show your love and faith in YHWH? But Abraham did so with tears rolling down his face, I imagine, and God stopped Abraham because he saw this faith - Abraham was broken but still faithful. He was willing to give it all up to God.

Sam asked, "What is good worship". It's a pretty open ended question for sure, but I believe that what we are talking about is the first step into "good worship" - worship that is pleasing to God - this idea that we are broken and no better than anybody else or that there are no second class citizens. Good worship is the realization that we are all on the same level, on the same earth, with the same God, and with same problem: our morality. To some this sounds a lot like the social Gospel, to others it may sound similar to communism, but to me this is the Kingdom of God. You can find this kind of worship in Alcoholics Anonymous. Could you imagine a faith community built upon authenticity (sarcasm implied)? What if the AA steps were an intro class into your church or ministry - knowing that you are not any better than anybody else on that stage or in that congregation (I know that Christ the King church in Bellingham offered it at one point in time).

The rich young ruler was almost there. He told Jesus that he was a follower of YHWH and obeyed his rules, but in the end he couldn't give up his securities (his possesions). It's the brokenness that Jesus was looking for and the realization of what the ruler was truly following; this is how we've been taught to look at this passage, but what if he would have said "Okay" to selling his possesions? What would Jesus have said next? I wonder if he would have kept finding other things in his life and would have kept going from there until the ruler finally went away sad? Jesus was searching for his brokenness and a realization that brokenness is beyond what we are comprehending in Christ. The Kingdom of God is a love for other people, not other things.

What do we see in today's Church though? The happy christendom where everybody is striving to achieve the norms given to us by the culture and the church! People are being told how to be good christians and good americans and how to be "normal". It is this aesetic which numbs to the point of no differences, and in the end we all look and act the same. The anaesetic? Where is it? What will wake us up? Where is the pill that will make us see? When will we realize what makes us a "real boy or girl"? What will take away the numbing and help us realize that we are still striving for the same thing as the rest of the world? I think it could be the realization of sin and the color that it brings to our black and white world. The realization of our sin is beautiful because it is the brokenness that we long for.